A Delicate Mind
by rock'n'roll-princess
Summary: Dr. Aro Volturi experimented on children to give them special abilities. He has now dissappeared and the government is out to destroy them. Can Edward and his gifted team find Bella and save her before it's too late? full summary inside.Cannon.AH
1. Prologue

**Hey guys! I hope you like my new story. It's been an idea I've had in my head for a while now. I'm really looking for a BETA, so if anybody likes my story and wants to be a part in it... **

**Summary: **Bella Swan was adopted as an infant by the lunatic professor, Doctor Aro Volturi, along with many other orphaned children. He experimented on them to make a new race of extrasensory beings, enhancing the abitily of their minds. Later he came to understand the complications of experimenting on ones so young. The side effects were too severe for their abilities to be of proper use. He then abandoned those subjects, all but a promising one, and focused on a new project; enhancing people with already developed phsychic capabilities. His second attempt proved to be a success. However that one subject from the batch of children still proved to be an enigma for the professor. He isolated her in a holding in AZ where he carried on his experiments with her late into her teens but was prevented from completing his research. Four years ago the government had discovered his illegal doings and was threatened by the power these extrasensory individuals possessed. They sent highly trained assassins to kill all subjects and Dr. Volturi. Aro Volturi scarpered like a coward, leaving the unsuspecting subjects to fend for themselves. The remaining subjects formed a unity to protect themselves and retrieve all the other lost subjects that were possibly in danger. Bella Swan was that one subject isolated in AZ. She is now in peril danger. After four years the team have finally discovered her whereabouts. She is the person they need to find, but does she want to be found?

**DISCLAIMER: Stephenie Meyer owns everything. Unfortunately even Edward...**

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**PROLOGUE**

**Administration of Menzoketamine DXM NO2 Genetic Enhancing on ****Subject 3 – 24****th**** Dec 1992**

_Three small girls sat__ on the floor in a bare white room. Their hollow cheekbones sunken with shadows despite the bright harshness of the light reflected off of the bare white walls. Not only were their cheeks hollow, but also the expression in their glistening eyes. Missing was the joy that childhood brings, missing was the childish fat on their four year old bones._

_Their skeletal hands clasped tightly around one another's. _

_It was time._

_The time they dreaded each day. In approximately 5 minutes an orderly would walk through that ominous door to separate them one by one, for horrors unknown to normal people. But definitely known to those three broken children._

_They knew they were being watched. Their otherworldly gazes were locked on the one-way mirror opposite them._

_As if summoned by their desolate stares, an orderly entered the room and grabbed the smallest of the girls. The other two tried pulling her back but the man, if you could even call him that, slapped the little blonde girl with such unnecessary vigour that her head rebounded back into the wall behind her. It effectively stopped the two on the linoleum floor from struggling, but the little girl in his arms who had hardly resisted him in the first place kicked up a ruckus as he carried her, clawing at him, out of the room._

_The camera picked up her horrific screams, regressing as he carried her down the hall._

_In another room much larger and sinister than the first, the orderly strapped the still screaming girl down to a metal table, whilst a man in a lab coat busied himself in the corner. He was humming to himself cheerfully in his deep baritone voice. _

_He chuckled __when the girl went silent all of a sudden and turned to look in her horrified eyes. _

_At first she hadn't noticed the doctor in the room from her struggling but as she recognized his dulcet tones her body froze in shock. Nothing about this moster was sweet. She whimpered as he drew nearer, making no effort to hide the scalpel, injections and other scientifical weapons of torture that he pulled over on a pulley. She was nothing more than a subject to him. She was not a child with feelings._

_He hushed her as she started struggling more in her restraints, and started to hum softly to her as he raised the needle filled with a thick milky solution._

_The nursery rhyme he hummed was far from comforting to the little girl._

Humpty Dumpty_, was an egg with no chance of being made whole again. This is what he always hummed for her and this was what would haunt her for the rest of her life._

She would _never_ be whole.

_As she closed her eyes tightly against the sting of the needle at the crook of her arm, fat tears squeezed themselves out of her eyes and carried on running down her cheeks, continuing even as she passed out from her terrorized minds exertion._

**END VIDEO**

Silence was held in the room of extrasensory individuals. Everyone was speechless. A heavy tension hung stagnant in the room as Esme changed the flash drive containing the footage to the next. There were atleast another 50 clips to watch containing far worse scenarios including Isabella Swan.

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**A/N: THANK YOU FOR READING! Did you like it? Please review. I will take all kinds of feedback in my stride. And I will be the first one to admit that I need a beta. So if you're interested, get in touch. :p I know this prologue is kinda short and that the summary is nearly as big, but I had to split the prologue in half because it would have been _too_ long otherwise. So I have another chapter to put up soon. :D Keep tuned!**

**Kiki xox**


	2. Chapter 1

**Hey guys!**

**I am still looking for a beta, so I'm sorry if this chapter is not up to your standards. **

**I also apologize for the delay in uploading this chapter. I know I promised a few of you that I'd be updating last week but I had a virus on my computer and I had to get that sorted before I could post this chapter. I just thank my lucky stars that I had it saved on my flash drive instead of on the computer itself. I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a long weekend, woo! We're going to the seaside. =D**

_**Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters belongs to Stephenie Meyer. So greedy...**_

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_**Previously:**_

_**PRESENT DAY**_

_Silence was held in the room of extrasensory individuals. Everyone was speechless and heavy tension hung stagnant in the room as Esme changed the flash drive containing the footage to the next. There were at least another fifty clips to watch containing far worse scenarios featuring Isabella Swan._

**Psycho-kinetics Analysis of Subject 3 – 10****th**** Oct 1994**

_The same girl lay in a plain hospital cot with white sheets. Though nearly two years had passed, she looked unchanged. Still too small, still malnourished, still empty. _

_Her large black obsidian eyes stared unseeingly at the ceiling. The irises were completely black and so large that you couldn't see the whites of her eyes. A result of never seeing the sunlight, or perhaps a physical enhancement the doctor devised to make her vision pre-eminent and super sensative. _

_Her heartbreakingly doleful eyes looked disproportional on her small heart shaped face. Apart from the nervous worrying at her lip, one would think the girl was deceased. Her heart beats barely rocked her chest and her breath was so shallow it was surprising she could be filling her lungs sufficiently._

_It was two hours later of inactivity before a nurse walked into the little girl's bedroom. _

"_Good morning Bella," she said softly._

_The girl known as Bella sat up in her bed and swung her legs around methodically. She barely spared the nurse a glance, let alone a greeting. _

_The nurse sighed in disappointment but lovingly brushed the little girl's hair up into a ponytail. After she had tamed the waist length mass of curls she placed a kiss on her head. _

"_You will have to speak again someday soon, sweetheart. I miss your beautiful voice." She continued to look at her in concern._

"_You know that it is aggravating Dr. Volturi more and more each day?" There was still no reply, just a small flash of fiery defiance in the girl's eyes, which disappeared so fast it could have been imagined._

_The nurse sighed again, "I just don't want you to get hurt anymore than you already have been."_

_The girl finally looked at the nurse with some emotion, a brightening in her eyes, although what kind of emotion could not be certain, for her facial features were as impassive as ever. _

_The nurse knew she was fighting a losing battle. She tried everyday to get Bella to open up sans result._

_Rising to her feet, the nurse walked to the door and looked back, despairingly, at the girl sitting on the bed. Bella got shakily to her feet and followed the nurse silently out of the door._

_They entered into a new room in the west wing of the building. _

_This new room was padded and white and it was apparent she was to train in this room._

_On the floor lay objects of variable dimensions and mass. She could figure that she'd have to practice her telekinetic abilities. It was her worst type of training because she had not yet developed the skills to lift or slide anything, without deadly repercussions to her mind and body. _

_It peeved the Doctor to no end that he was failing his pursuit. He had made all the necessary adjustments to her genetic make-up for the psycho kinesis to function, yet her natural ability to protect and shield her mind and body remained a predicament. She could not remove this shield from her brain temporarily without exorbitant strain on her body to use telekinesis. _

_The Doctor was a greedy man and did not want to remove her shield permanently, for it was an invaluable gift in itself. She would be impenetrable if ever interrogatedwith both abilities. Nobody would ever be able to get into her mind, not even other psychically enhanced beings._

_Therefore, with psychokinetic abilities in addition to her shield, she would inevitably be an indestructible weapon. _

_So the Doctor continued his research with trial and error, and the inhumane suffering he inflicted on the poor little child did not deter him in the least. He was in no hurry to complete his research for he had her whole childhood to perfect it. _

_With subject three, Dr. Volturi kept making mistake after mistake. It had been two years since he had first mutated her DNA to make her telekinetic and he was quickly losing his patience .He knew it would be a while before he perfected the transformation, yet he still wasn't making the slightest bit of progress. In the space of two years he had tried operating on her brain, he had tried electric shock therapy, psychotropic drugs, meditation, gene mutation… you name it, and he had tried it. But the Doctor had the mentality that _everything_ is possible. So he kept pressurising Bella to keep trying to contract the shield from her brain, despite the seizures and internal bleeding it caused._

_He came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't_ him _that wasn't trying hard enough. It was the _girl_ that wasn't trying._

_Bella stood in the centre of the room. The nurse left hurriedly, not wanting to be present when the girl got angered or hurt. Not even Dr. Volturi was present in the room. He stood in one adjacent to her with a one-way mirror and microphone. She was becoming more and more dangerous after being genetically enhanced, that not many people dared to approach her. When she got angered or upset her shield would expand like the impact from an atomic bomb. Anyone in its trajectory is likely to get hurt or possibly even face death. The shield was a great defence mechanism. _

"_Good Morning Subject Three," the Doctor greeted pleasantly and then took a sip of his bitter black coffee._

_She ignored him bravely, but of course he hadn't expected her to reply anyway, she hadn't spoken aloud to anybody in over a year. _

_Dr. Volturi's hand tightened infinitesimally around the mug as a theory came to him out of the blue._

_He had been contemplating for years now how her shield worked. It was akin to a nebulous barrier around her brain, protecting her. They had tried constricting the barrier to make it disappear and the results had been inconclusive and ineffectual, but perhaps if she expanded it so that it was still protecting her but also the object, it could be possible that the object inside the vacuum would then not be considered a threat, _therefore_ enabling her to manoeuvre it psychokinetically. _

_A cold sweat congregated on his palms and forehead at the possibility that he could be making a breakthrough with his experiment. He also hadn't overlooked the possibility that if his theory was correct, her shield could be far more advantageous than he first apprehended. If she could expand her shield over an object, what could stop her from shielding a group of people?_

_Eager to attest his theory Dr. Volturi discarded his coffee and concentrated on the girl_

"_Okay, fine. We shall begin. Pick up those marbles by your feet."_

_She bent to pick them up but froze when he screamed at her, "without your hands for god's sake. You stupid child." Maybe his eagerness was getting the best of him._

_She stood up and levelled a glare at the glass whilst the Doctor took a few calming breaths. _

_After a few seconds, Bella looked at the marbles and focused on their centre of gravity whilst contracting the barrier doctor Volturi insisted was around her brain, trying to get the glass spheres to rise. The longer she focused the more her upper head tingled._

_For a minute or two nothing happened, so she looked at Dr. Aro Volturi for further instruction._

"_Don't look at me. Look at the marbles. You aren't even trying." he goaded._

_She huffed and looked at them again. This time she focused on the centre of gravity again until her face puckered up and turned puce. The pressure inside her skull built and built until she thought she would pass out. And those damn balls still wouldn't even budge an inch._

"_You won't be able to do it like that dear. You have to try and relax the barriers in your mind. Imagine an elastic band constricted around your brain and try and stretch it over the marbles, and then focus on the point," he said._

_She took deep calming breaths before trying again. She was annoyed that he hadn't told her that information before. He used to instruct her to squeeze the barrier as close to her brain as possible. It was suffocating._

"_Stretch it out over the marbles and then focus on them Subject three." He always called her _Subject Three._ Never by her name. If it were up to him she wouldn't have ever had a name. It was her nurse that named her. To the Doctor she was an object, nothing more. Her feelings didn't count for anything. He had once told her that she was a waste of space, that even her parents hadn't wanted her, but at least now she had a purpose to better science. _

_She continued these exercises on the marbles for hours without success. Her head felt like it was being torn open. She just couldn't get the barriers of her brain to withdraw. And by three in the afternoon she was swaying on her feet and had only managed to make the marbles vibrate._

"_You are useless," Aro Volturi shrieked impatiently at the girl, it didn't sit well with him that his theory could have been wrong. Aro Volturi was _never_ wrong. "If you do not complete this task in the next half hour I will never allow you to see Alice and Rose ever again," he roared and his spittle flecked the glass on his side of the mirror._

_Bella didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he had affected her, so she managed to choke down the tiny sob that threatened to tear out of her throat and wiped the snot mingling in with the blood from her over exertion on her grey scrubs. Alice and Rose were the only two people she had in the world. And Dr. Volturi was a thorough man. She wouldn't put it past him to do something that despicable. After all, cutting up children and experimenting on them was an everyday job to him._

"_Again," he barked._

_Despite the colossal pain she was already in, Bella knew she couldn't fail. She squeezed her eyes shut tight at the horrendous stabbing pain as she tried to push the barriers encasing her brain away. It felt exponentially worse than the times she had brain freeze, from the ice cold water her nurse sometimes brought in during the summer as a treat, and she'd greedily gulped it down. It felt like her head had been plunged in a tub full of ice. The kind that they used in POW camps to torture information out of the enemies. She had read about it in books. Books were a luxury to her and the only things she had to enlighten her about an outside world. They absolutely fascinated her. _

_Finally she concentrated back on the balls and felt some progress as she felt more pressure on her skull. It felt similar to an elastic band expanding. The band so taut and ready to snap. Just like her brain felt as if it were about to explode. It was excruciating, but she had come so far to go back. She had to do it for her friends._

_Warm blood trickled from her nose and ears, hitting the white floor grotesquely. As she strained harder and harder, her breathing grew louder and her brain starved itself of oxygen. The pressure increased and the invisible elastic-like barrier withdrew a few inches from her body, nearly covering the marbles. She could feel it and it gave her a little optimism that she might finally be able to pull this off. Definitely_ not_ for _Dr. Volturi, _but for her _friends_. _

_Not once did Dr. Volturi tell her to stop, even though the danger was clearly visible. She was just moments away from having a seizure._

_He watched cravingly as the marbles started to vibrate._

_The white spots behind her closed eyelids grew until all she could see was light, so before she passed out she imagined the marbles at her feet and focused on their point of gravity. She pictured a leaf floating in the wind, weightless, until the feeling overtook her too. Into a weightless place she went, where there were no doctors or tests or operations. She dreamt of a place far away from here._

_Subject Three had fallen into a coma. Spasms rocked her little body and blood streamed from her nose as she had a seizure on the floor. _

_Dr. Volturi took a few seconds to gloat in his victory before entering the training room to retrieve the child in perilous danger of brain damage._

**PRESENT DAY**

Esme turned the lights back on after watching the videos recorded on Bella, Subject Three. The videos dated right up to the 20th May 2006. A week prior to the date Doctor Aro Volturi disappeared four years ago. Edward looked over at two of his friends. They had been mentioned occasionally in the clips.

Rose and Alice sat close to each other looking at walls on either side of the room. Neither would look at the other people in the room. Their hands were tightly clasped together, very much like in one of the videos.

It was a sign of unity.

Alice was sad and Rose was angry like many of the other people in the room.

They had each been experiments for Aro Volturi at some point in their lives, however for most of them there had been a choice. What had happened to Bella and the other girls he adopted went far beyond what anyone could comprehend.

It disgusted Edward. He was far from being an innocent man himself, yet he was livid that somebody could torture children like that. As far as Edward was concerned, Aro Volturi was worse than any rapist or murderer.

Would the children have been better off dead? Naturally he would have said 'no,' but the suffering that poor girl went through made him consider otherwise.

That girl would never be happy. Her whole childhood had been stolen.

Esme was the first to break the hostile silence in the room.

"Any questions?" she asked timidly.

"What happened to her?" Emmett asked. He may have looked big and intimidating, yet he was definitely the most compassionate of the group aside from Carlisle and Esme.

"She escaped when the government came after my ex-husband," Esme said.

"Where is she now?" Alice asked.

"In a small town called Forks, in Washington."

It was silent for a few seconds.

"So is that all?" Esme asked.

Nobody answered.

"Good, because I want you, Edward, to find her and bring her here. She is in danger. The government has just tracked her down. They want her dead. Your flight leaves tonight." She said matter of factly.

"What? No. Absolutely not. Why me?" Edward choked. He hadn't said a word the whole meeting. He definitely hadn't expressed a desire to look after her.

He was the least equipped for it. They all knew Edward was a brooding bastard. Sure, he was a fighter and a leader but there wasn't anything loveable in him. What would make her trust him to bring her to safety? He couldn't even remember the last time he had smiled. The girl would take one look at him and run in the opposite direction.

"Edward we can't all go after her. She will be frightened enough as it is. She will need somebody that she can trust. You have to make her see that we are only trying to help her," Esme preached whilst Carlisle rubbed her shoulders.

"I doubt it was ever in her plans to come back to one of the places she was tested either," Carlisle chipped in sarcastically.

"Furthermore, she is extremely dangerous and you are the most talented person and are also the best fighter. I really need you to protect her Edward. I feel it's my duty to protect those poor little girls. I need to make amends for never discovering what that monster was doing! I can't believe I was married to that...that bastard for eight years! I failed them!" Esme seethed, quite out of her nature.

Alice had moved to her side to comfort her, to hold her hand.

He surely thought that Alice would have been a better nominee for the job, and he didn't hesitate to voice it.

"No Edward. I know she might remember Alice. But she might think it's a trap to lure her back to Aro. And besides, I have faith in you to bring her back. I know you can fight a group of government operatives alone and come out on top. It's the only way I see this working. If things get out of hand, and you need back up the team here will of course assist you when requested."

Edward hesitated a few moments while he thought about the situation. It's not that he didn't want to protect the girl. He truly did. He just had mixed emotions about bringing her back to a place she feared. It didn't seem fair to bring her back to a place of torture when she had only just escaped four years ago. Who was he to rip her away from the new life she might have created for herself?

"I don't think we have thought this through properly Esme-" he started but Esme interrupted him.

"We have. Carlisle and I discussed this thoroughly. If you want we can cast a vote. Those in favour of helping Bella?"

Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Emmett, Jasper and a few others in the room raised their hands, leaving only Rose and Edward in the minority.

Edward sighed in resignation and rubbed his hands over his face.

"I'm sorry Edward, but she really does need our help. She is lethal, but she can only use her abilities for so long before her mind shuts down in fatigue. You saw the toll using her abilities had on her. It was devastating. They will use that against her. If she defeats them once, do you really think they will let her live? They know she's enhanced. They aren't going to go easy on her. They're scared of her and what she's capable of."

Edward was beginning to realise that maybe Esme was right. First and foremost, Bella deserved safety. She had undergone too much trauma in her life. It might be easier this way if she was under their protection, he thought.

Esme could see the slight softening in Edwards's eyes, so she handed him over the piece de resistance.

Edward looked at the photo she had handed him. It was a picture of the girl, now a young woman, and in the bottom right hand corner the date told him it was taken only a week prior.

The petite young woman was wrapped amicably around an older gentleman's back. It looked as if he were giving her a piggy back ride or possibly that they had just been play fighting. The man had a rather comical moustache. It didn't escape Edwards's notice that they were laughing and looking at each other in familial admiration. It warmed his heart to think that maybe she had found somebody that cared. _A father figure._

But the thing that affected Edward the most was that she was utterly _beautiful_.

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**Thank You for reading! I hope you liked it. Please give me feedback. It will give me incentive to write faster.**

**Next chapter will have Bella in the present. **

**Once again I apologize for the delay. I also apologize for any mistakes I have made. I haven't had time to proof read this, and I guessed that after your patience you deserved something, even if it had mistakes.**

**Hope you are all having a great Summer!**

**Kiki,**

**xox**


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N**

**Hey guys! **

**Sorry for the delay! I knew what I wanted to write in this chapter, but it just wasn't coming out right, so I scrapped it and started again. To make up for it, I have made the chapter really long. I haven't properly reread this, so there may be mistakes, just try to ignore them. I didn't want to wait any longer to get it out to you; you've waited long enough.**

**I would be grateful if people could leave a review because feedback will improve my writing.**

**Thanks for your reviews **_**flock6, sophia18, brittany86 & CeruleanKitten**_**! :) You're stars!**

**I hope my story continues to please you.**

**Oh! and I forgot to mention in the other A/Ns that this is a crossover between Twilight and Ghostwalker novels by Christine Feehan. I didn't put it in the crossover part because of the rating. There will be lemons. And if you haven't read the Ghostwalker novels, I'm reccommending it. They're fantastic. :D**

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_**DISCLAIMER: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and it's characters and Christine Feehan owns the Ghostwalker novels. **_

**In Forks**

At a quarter to midnight Bella rang the bell in Charlie's, the only bar in Forks, to indicate last orders. It had been a long, boring Monday night and she was eager to go home and work out. There had been no brawls this evening, and she felt slightly disappointed, even though she hadn't expected any more from the small sleepy town.

Sleep was definitely off the cards for Bella, though. She could feel all the pent up energy from the inactivity culminating inside of her. She_ needed_ that release. To get rid of all that excess energy. Ever since the _Doctor_ had enhanced her physically she barely found the need for long periods of sleep and there was always restlessness niggling at her.

She wasn't _normal_ like other people.

Nobody else she had encountered in her four years of freedom could forego sleep for a few days without feeling the effects. She barely slept three hours each night, and even that was because she coerced herself into doing so. She also had incredible stamina and endurance- she could run faster and longer than any Olympic athlete without feeling any fatigue whatsoever. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to sleep peacefully for hours on end.

Whilst the last few remaining customers in the bar placed their orders, Bella silently polished the beer mugs and pitchers until they all left, giving them a polite nod and a smile on their departure. She shut off all the lights, only leaving the fluorescent neon signs to carry on flashing and buzzing, they would turn off on a timer just before dawn.

Quickly turning off the duke box, after savouring the last song- _Tears in Heaven-_ she made her way to the doors and locked up. Music was a novelty that she had still not gotten used to.

In the facilities, none of the subjects had anything to sing about. They hadn't had any idea what love, happiness, or even a family truly was. And that's usually what music is about. After Bella had escaped the prison, and found refuge in Forks sometime later, she realized that she had barely been human while she was detained. She didn't know what being- _living_- really entailed, all except from what she had learnt in books. So now music gave her a small pleasure because she felt she could relate to it occasionally. And to her, that meant that she was finally _living._

The bar belonged to Charlie, the ex police chief, and for all intents and purposes, her adoptive father. It wasn't an official adoption because by the time Bella had arrived in Forks she was already legally an adult at the age of eighteen. However Charlie filled the hole in her heart that had tortured her for years. He took up the role of her protective father. He was somebody that _cared _for her and in return she cared for him. She would have done anything for Charlie, for not only had he given her a gift of love, he had given her a _life,_ a_ home_ and a _future. Most of the things that she had never let herself even hope for._

As Bella stepped out of the bar a feeling of unease overcame her. A prickling sensation on the back of her neck made her nervous and a chill crept up her arms and raised the tiny hairs there. She was easily spooked nowadays, for she was hiding from somebody, and she had no intent to ever become a victim to him or his experiments again. It had been a long four years since her escape, and even now she didn't feel free. She doubted she ever would be; she would always be on the run. She knew that she had probably stayed in the safety of Forks for far too long, but the thought of leaving Charlie made her heart ache. She knew that she should have kept on moving, leaving no roots, but the anonymity in Forks and Charlie gave her a false sense of security. An ex chief and false, overzealous, small town gossip would hardly stop the megalomaniac from finding her. Aro was too clever, too perceptive and far too persistent to let his experiments go to waste.

Quickly she did a recon on her surroundings. Her vision was far more advanced that the norm, taking in the scenery faster and much more vividly, burning the image into her photographic mind. It was an incredibly useful gift to have, but Bella would have rather been ordinary, rather than the dangerous predator that she was manufactured to be. She didn't think it was _him _out there_,_ the _Doctor,_ because her senses had always been astute. If it had been him or anyone to do with him, she was certain alarm bells would have been ringing in her head. Nevertheless she still sensed an element of danger. Scanning the parking lot, trees and nearby streets again, she didn't process anything out of the norm. She was on edge because there were so many new arrivals in the town over the last couple of days. An abundance of young men and women had been flocking into Forks. Charlie had mentioned that it was fishing and hunting season, yet according to Bella the visitors didn't quite fit the stereotype. And apparently an extinct species of wolf had been spotted on the local reservation, so there were also researchers, photographers and animal activists setting up camp in the area because they weren't allowed to stay on the Rez.

Shaking herself out of her paranoia Bella quickly jogged across the street to her car. Jumping in, she tossed her purse and jacket into the back of her Audi and let the cool leather of the seats and the purr of the engine soothe her.

The air was unseasonably warm and muggy this evening. Rain was definitely on the cards, possibly even a storm. The air pressure had been rising for days. And sure enough, as soon as she reached the outskirts of the forest on her way home, a flash of lightening streaked across the quiet sky. It was too far away for the thunder to be heard, but it would soon make its way over. The forest looked ominous crowding the dark, deserted road. But for some reason it comforted Bella.

She drove past the residential area and further into the outskirts of the town towards her home which she shared with Charlie. A warm feeling of affection washed over her as she thought of Charlie. She had never known what it felt like to be loved until she came to Forks. Charlie had adopted her into his life without questions. He didn't care that she couldn't tell him her past, and he definitely didn't care that she hardly ever spoke. He became the father she always dreamed of. She had promised herself ever since she could remember that she would never trust anybody in her life; never let anybody get close enough to her physically or emotionally. However Charlie had broken that resolve, over time of course.

He had protected her from a group of drunken men outside of his bar one night a few years back. Even though she hadn't been in any danger, he had no idea that she wasn't as defenceless as she looked. She was far too capable of protecting herself from normal civilians. But the kind gesture had warmed her frozen heart. She had felt obligated to repay him because he spared her from fighting off those men herself and revealing her identity, so the next morning she prepared him a breakfast hamper and delivered it to his doorstep. She was staying at the Lodge and had stealthily used the kitchen facilities to prepare it. It was an anonymous gift of course, but he had known all along that it was from her. Every morning after that Charlie travelled to the Lodge to have breakfast with her, even though the diner was far more convenient. He sat with her every morning for a week, never instigating conversation, but reading the newspaper. She had been worried at first that he would expect her to tell him her story, but he was a man of very few words himself and soon realised that Bella wasn't going to talk, except for a nod or a shake of her head. After a few days Charlie started talking about himself, his bar, his old job, his passed wife and daughter etc. It shocked her that he would trust a total stranger to tell his past. It shocked her even more that he spoke to her as if she were a person and not a monster. The gentleman intrigued her. She hadn't spoken in years and it surprised her that she actually _wanted_ to speak to him and possibly nearly _trusted _the old man. Since then, their friendship progressed over the years and not long after meeting, she found herself living with him. They had a certain kinship, an affinity for silence and above all respect for each other.

Nearer to her home the foliage was thicker and the trees were closer together. Charlie lived on the outskirts of the town, just on the border of the Reservation, where his best friend Billy lived. Bella opened the front windows to breathe in the cool night air and listened to the forests with her enhanced hearing. She expected it to be quiet because of the brewing storm. The animals had acute senses like her, and could sense danger in advance. Only the insects should have been chirping, whilst the other animals had already sought shelter. However she heard more than she bargained for.

"_Target approaching. Approximate arrival two minutes. Prepare for hands on combat. She must NOT be killed. Repeat, she must NOT be killed. James wants her alive. OVER." _A male voice whispered into a handheld transmitter.

If the animals and both insects had not been quiet she probably wouldn't have heard the voice. He had to have been in the tree cover about a hundred yards back.

Instantly her heartbeat increased in distress, but she fought to control it like she had been practicing for years. The Doctor had trained her for all kinds of threats. He said that fear was a weakness that he had no patience for. He had liked her fear occasionally; it had made him feel powerful, however when fear stopped her achieving desired results, he had no patience for it. He said that all predators could smell fear. And she knew better than anybody that even humans were predators, after all she was one herself. She had been melded into a designer human killing machine. _She wasn't proud._

She could hit herself at how negligent she had been. She had let her guard down. Why had she fooled herself into believing there was no threat when everything in her nature was alerting her to it over the past two days? She knew why. It was because she didn't _want_ to leave Forks, or more importantly Charlie. She was beginning to feel _normal_. Well as normal as a superhuman freak could be. How could she have ignored all those warnings?_ The chilly shivers, the strangers, the feeling of being watched, the photographers, the strangers looking at her, the animals being quiet all week? _Even _they_ had sensed the danger when it wasn't even directed at them.

Without a doubt the man in the forest was talking about Bella. Nobody else was around. And as far as she knew, her and Charlie were the only ones with a house so far out of town. What had the man said again? _Target. _He'd called her target. That was military jargon_. Hands on combat. Must NOT be killed. _That meant they wanted to _contain_ her, not kill her, and that scared her more than the threat of death.

An icy trickle of fear made its way down her spine. _He_ had found her, the Doctor. She just knew it. There was the possibility that there were other people out there looking for her, to end or use her, but Dr. Volturi knew the working of her brain far better than anybody else. After all he had programmed and trained her. He was sure to find her first. She slowed the car down to a crawl so she could process a plan before her arrival at the house. They knew she was here; there was no opportunity for an escape. The best chance she had was to attack them in her own territory, where she knew the terrain.

Adrenalin made her brain work at twice the normal speed and endorphins raced through her body preparing her for an attack. She knew that Charlie wouldn't be home tonight, so that was one less thing to worry about. He had the night off from work and he and Billy had left the bar earlier to watch a baseball game and down a few beers on the reservation with the other old _boys._ He definitely wouldn't drive home after consuming alcohol; he'd be crashing at Billy's because he was the ex chief of police, he had to set a respectable example.

When Charlie returns the next morning she would be gone, and he would carry on with his life. She just hoped that her disappearance wouldn't affect him too deeply. But who was she kidding? If his feelings for her were even a fraction compared to her feelings for him, she knew he would not take it lying down. She just hoped that Volturi's men had fabricated a story for her inevitable disappearance. Maybe they would even be kind enough to leave Charlie a note.

Thinking strategically she knew that the Doctor wouldn't send in a bunch of amateurs to collect her. He probably sent several of his faithful projects; other super-soldiers. Men capable of killing or torturing with their minds. She couldn't underestimate Volturi, he was a scrupulous man.

She was not insecure with her abilities, she was a far more accomplished fighter than all of the other experiments Volturi had. In her teens he had concocted tournaments between her and several lethal opponents, some had even been enhanced like herself. She had never lost a fight, hence her being alive today. These fights were cruel; they were fight until death situations. _Survival of the fittest_. Dr. Volturi didn't care that children and adults were murdered. He wanted the _elite_. According to him they all died for a reasonable purpose; _to better science_. He used to call Bella his _kiddie-killer _and then upgraded to_ little lady killer _as she grew older. He made her sick._ Nearly as sick as she felt about herself._

So it was definitely a given that Dr. Volturi sent several enhanced soldiers after her. And whoever James was, he was the captain and probably the one to look out for.

She couldn't turn the car around and make a swift escape because there was that man in the trees with a transmitter and receiver. He could have the others after her in an instant. And she couldn't rule out that there weren't snipers with tranquilizer darts up in those trees. She wasn't going to lead them into the town or towards the reservation where Charlie was, and she definitely wasn't going to give up without a fight.

She pulled out her bowie knife that was strapped to her calf, the only weapon she carried on her person nowadays. She had become terribly lax in precautions. But luckily she had other weapons stashed elsewhere. Jamming the knife into the leather of the passenger seat she tore a hole in the fabric and it gave as easy as if it were butter. She grabbed a 9mm and slapped in the cartridge case, grabbing a few more cases from the reserve and slipping them in her jacket pockets. She also grabbed a set of knives and a switchblade and attached them to her body without stopping the car. She could think of a hundred ways to kill with her hands and even just her mind. The artillery was just a precaution, and it got the job done quicker. Despite them being enemies, she didn't want them to suffer. If some of them were Volturi's subjects, God only knows that they'd suffered enough already. An execution shot between the eyes was the most appropriate, she thought.

She also couldn't risk the fatigue and convulsions that wracked her body after using her psychic abilities. She needed to be in fit form to escape, after killing them all. So to avoid the internal haemorrhaging, traditional firearms were her best bet to coming out of this whole mess.

She took a few calm breaths and focused on getting into the killing mentality. She had to distance herself from her emotions and her conscience. She didn't want to kill again, but Volturi left her no choice. Once again he had managed to manipulate her into a killer,_ a monster_, something she didn't ask for, nor ever want to be. All she ever wanted was to be _loved._ How stupid had she been to even think that was possible? Who could love _her_? Charlie didn't even know the half of it.

Stopping the car a few hundred yards from the opening in the woods that lead to her house, she rigged the car to explode when the first person opens a door. A simple trip wire had done the trick on it. She exited the vehicle, donned her fitted jacket and patted her car; a bid farewell. She couldn't risk using it again. They could trace her.

Making a mad dash for the cover of the trees she looked stealthily over her shoulder to look for threats. She made it to the tree line without being spotted. She doubted their eyesight could match her blurring speed. The man in the trees hadn't been enhanced like her because she would have felt the psychic energy surrounding him. She could detect somebody with psychic and physical enhancements from a hundred yards away. All of the subjects could.

The wind picked up and the leaves rustled threateningly on the trees, disturbing the silence. That could only mean that the storm had finally reached them. A few rain drops collected on the leaves, dropped down and then cracked on her head. And a loud crack of thunder and a flash of white light overrode the sound of _pitter-pattering_ rain for a second or two. The twigs crunched underfoot as Bella made her way closer to her property. She was still a good kilometre from the house. The quaint house was surrounded by the forest on all sides, but she was approaching from the West because there was better cover there to scope out the threats before she walked into the trap.

She had to fight them here. If she ran they wouldn't be far behind her. And she had to use this area to her advantage._ She knew it better than them._ In her mind she had a map in her head of the vicinity and she knew all of the suitable places to hide, and she had also all the ammunition and equipment she needed stashed all over the forests.

She had to get rid of them all now or they would keep on coming back for her.

Swiftly approaching the back of the property, Bella got soaked. The rain was loud, crashing all around her and disturbing the foliage. It was an advantage that it camouflaged her sound. Aware that there could be others in the woods as she got nearer, she slipped a small knife from her ankle. She couldn't use the gun because she didn't want to draw the attention of the other men. If she had to kill here, it had to be silent.

Using her shield she masked her psychic energy. The others wouldn't sense her approach. It was a useful gift, but tiring all the same.

A rhythmic breathing a few metres away from her drew her attention. It wasn't a super-soldier because she couldn't sense his subconscious mind. She couldn't read minds at all, but she could sense when somebody was enhanced because they had no barriers protecting their brain. Bella was an exception to that law. She had psychic abilities, but still had the barriers protecting the brain. It was an anomaly.

Her eyes swiped the area where she heard the breathing. If she hadn't done a second sweep she wouldn't have noticed him. He was up in a tree facing away from her, his rifle trained somewhere near the house. His clothing was camouflaged to fit in with the surrounding trees. From her angle she could only see his elbow as it was hooked into a crook in the branches. Skirting around the trees, invisibly and silently, Bella hid behind a thick pine tree in front of him. Calculating the distance between where she was standing and his seat in the tree, she swung her arm out without hesitance and flung the dagger with deadly precision at his throat. It hit its target with a satisfying _thump._ He made no sound except for a slight gurgling as he choked to death on his own blood and slumped down, still hanging in the tree.

Her eyes prickled with remorse, but she slowly turned away and carefully continued to her house.

Remaining in the trees on the edge of the back yard, Bella watched for signs of movement in and around the house. All the lights were turned off, even the porch light, which was automatic. That suggested that one of them had shot it out or smashed it. Bella couldn't see the men, but she could definitely hear them and sense them. She estimated that there were three enhanced men in there and possibly five other ordinary soldiers lining the perimeter of the property. She had to be quiet and pick them off one by one.

There was no chance of her surviving if they all rushed her at once. She hadn't ever fought more than one enhanced person at a time, though she had often fought multiple civilian soldiers simultaneously.

Creeping to her right she found another unenhanced man. This one was laying flat on the ground, covered in leaves. All that was visible was the butt of his rifle sticking out. It was containing tranquilizer darts no doubt. She crawled up behind him, holding her breath, and ambushed him, slitting his throat. His wide eyes stared up at her in shock as she rolled him over and kicked his radio out of his hand.

She wanted to tell him she was sorry. What if he had a family somewhere? But she dispelled that thought as soon as it came. It wasn't helpful to have an emotional connection.

In the distance an obnoxious _boom _rocked the trees. They had found her car then, Bella thought to herself. She realized that it wouldn't take long for them to realize she was in the forests surrounding her home. She had to act fast.

Scaring her out of her wits a dart flew passed her and lodged itself into a tree. She spun round and shot at the pines to her left. The shot came from above. A muffled _oomph _told her she had hit her target. The other soldiers were officially aware now that she was in the vicinity. Her shots had given her away.

She sighed in annoyance. If she had trained in the last four years she would have noticed the man up in the trees, but she hadn't.

During her internal berating, a large figure glided out of the shadows with a grace and speed only common in Volturi's guinea pigs. She caught his profile in the corner of her eye. At the last moment she caught his psychic presence. _He was enhanced_. For once in her life she was relieved to have her shield. It would protect her from nearly all psychic talents. Spinning round with a round house kick, she caught him in the jaw, although her diminutive size barely had any effect on him. The man was a _bear! _Thick, bulging muscles ribbed his forearms and biceps. He had to be at least three times her size, horizontally and vertically.

He made a grab for her from behind, trying to get her in an unbreakable grip, but she grabbed his wrist before his arms could take purchase, and used his momentum to pull him over her head and slam him on the ground. She had used this tactical technique, using his weight to aid her in her combat, because she had no chance at matching his strength herself. She was fast, but not necessarily stronger. So using her training from the dark days, she changed her combat technique to tact, it was sure to win, against his bull in a china shop approach. Consequently, he lay wheezing on the floor, winded. Using his incapacity to her benefit, she crawled over him, pinning his arms with her knees, and snapped his neck with a rough clockwise tug.

He hadn't even had a chance to use his psychic skills, so she had no idea what he could do. She was disappointed that she didn't know what his particular talent was. All of the subjects were unique and had their own gift, or _curse_, however you look at it. She had seen subjects kill with a single touch to the wrist. And she avoided one of the subjects at the facility because he could encourage people or animals to do things they didn't want to do with his mind.

Taking one last glance at the bear of a man, she scaled a tree, waiting for the other enhanced men to come to her. They'd have noticed the severance in the connection between their psychic connection.

She had no sympathy for that _monster._ Who could willingly follow Volturi's orders after what he did to them? Obviously he could.

Cool breath tickled her neck, but it was too late to retaliate. It was happening far too often for her liking. How were they all sneaking up on her? She had never been unknowingly approached before. And he was psychically enhanced for Christ's sake. How had she not sensed him? He had to have been already in the tree above her before she even climbed it. _How stupid. _The man had her in a strangle hold from behind before she could even catch a breath.

_Don't move, _a velvety masculine voice ordered telepathically, _I'll get you out of here. _

Despite his warnings, she struggled, but the man only tightened his grip.

He sighed agitatedly.

_Fine. You leave me no choice. _

His arm tightened; the pressure cutting off her blood supply, using a rear naked choke. (RNC) That particular chokehold squeezes the jugular, resulting in a fairly safe and clean knockout. Other techniques to knock somebody out involve jarring the brain and causing irreparable trauma to the brain stems. This man wanted her unharmed, or more specifically, the Doctor wanted her brain unharmed; he had more uses for her yet.

She wanted desperately to use her psychic enhancements. Telekinetically she could knock him out with a tree branch or her gun. Or she could simply even use her shield, if she worked up enough angry emotions, all she had to do was let the energy rip and it would blast him twenty feet away. However things were not so simple; she could not do these things because she was _flawed_. Usage of her mind drained her and often brought on a seizure. She couldn't afford to have a seizure up in the tree, and she definitely wouldn't be able to run away or fight the others off.

Back at the facilities there had been a man that absorbed the repercussions of her abilities. He could stop the seizures just by connecting his mind with hers. Volturi had used him repeatedly during her training and assignments.

Whilst contemplating whether using her psychic abilities were worth the repercussions, the oxygen in her brain depleted and she found it hard to think anymore. She could only hear the blood pounding in her ears.

Just before she passed out from the lack of oxygen, the head of her captor stretched around to look into her face.

If she were not mistaken, the bronze haired, emerald eyed soldier whispered a soft apology to her.

The pounding of blood in her ears reached a crescendo and the world turned black, leaving her unconscious and confused.

_I'm sorry... _echoed repeatedly in her mind.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for reading. I hope you liked it. If you did **_**or didn't,**_** please leave a review. It motivates me to write faster. **

**LOL! My mom called Robert Pattinson "Sex on legs" the other day. It made me giggle because she's like past 60. I think I may have even high fived her... It was a momentous occasion because we bonded. Usually we bicker about **_**everything.**_

**Have a great week!**

**Kiki**

**xox**


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